At the end of August, Pavel Durov, the founder of the social network Telegram, was arrested in France. French law enforcement authorities accuse him of tolerating criminal activities on his platform. If proceedings are brought against Durov, he could, in the worst case, receive a long prison sentence.
Under the massive pressure, Durov now apparently felt compelled to show a willingness to cooperate. He recently explained on X that he was still trying to understand the exact background to his arrest, but that Telegram wanted to take the authorities’ concerns seriously – and “moderate” them more in the future.
The first significant change has already been made. Until a few days ago, the terms of use still read: “All Telegram chats and group chats are private between participants. We do not process any requests in this regard.” That is now over. Instead, it now says: “All Telegram apps have report buttons that you can use to flag illegal content for our moderators.”
It is to be expected that private conversations on Telegram will no longer be private in the future. This is a 180-degree turn in company policy. Whether it will help Durov to get out of trouble however, remains to be seen.
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